


A Little Less Action, A Little More Conversation

by Silent-Wordsmith (Shatteredsand)



Series: Awkward Conversations [6]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:55:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteredsand/pseuds/Silent-Wordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla had just wanted a glass of blood. How that had turned into Laura sitting her and Danny down to have a discussion about feelings and rules, Carmilla will never know. There’s a power-point. Why is there a power-point?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Less Action, A Little More Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Because no polyamorous series is complete without The Talk. The “threesomes are super fun and all, but we should probably discuss some of the practicalities” Talk.

Carmilla isn’t entirely sure how this had happened. One minute, she’s pouring herself a glass of blood while Laura and the giantess let themselves in. The next, Laura is sitting both of them down with her serious face and her adorable little frown. And then the talking had started.

“So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while…” Laura had started, all determination and recklessness. Carmilla wants to stop her there, because Laura thinking about something for a while usually translated to _there’s something incredibly stupid and pointlessly brave that I feel the need to do_ and Carmilla likes to head that off as early as possible. Sometimes, she even succeeds. “And I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. That this is what we all want, for all the right reasons.”

“Wait, what?” The wolf beats Carmilla to the words.

“Some things have been said,” Laura is carefully not looking at either of them, but Carmilla knows that she hasn’t done anything to give even the vaguest impression that she’s doing anything she doesn’t want to be. Ergo, it’s the redheaded portion of this triad that’s let loose something moronic off her tongue. Fantastic. “And I just want… This won’t work if you guys are only doing it to humor me. If you’re not happy about the fact that I’m dating both of you, this’ll fall apart.”

“Laura…” Danny looks conflicted. So at least the dumbass realizes that this is her fault then. That’s a start. “When I said that, I didn’t mean…”

“We need to talk about this. We need to have…rules.”

“Rules?” Carmilla bristles. She’s had more than enough restraints placed on her and her foolish heart to last lifetimes, restrictions she’s only just broken free of. She’s less than eager to contrive new ones to replace them.

“Rules. Like, no biting without permission, for example.”

“Is the gingersnap worried that I might? Because I have impeccable control. She can have my fangs in her pretty little throat when she begs for them, and not a moment before.”

“Stop _saying_ that.” Danny growls at her, deathly pale and so, so much fear in her eyes. It makes Carmilla smirk, the fear. The confusion. The _want_. Someone should really put the poor thing out of her misery and explain to her why she wants the way she does, but Carmilla is too busy enjoying her internal conflict to be the one to do it.

“See, that’s exactly my point!” Laura exclaims. “Carmilla, Danny isn’t comfortable with your vampiric innuendo. So you have to stop.”

“Fine. I promise not to make any more biting promises to the pup. Are we done?”

“No. Shut up and sit back down. This is important.”

Carmilla considers storming from the dorm. She is over three hundred years old; she doesn’t take orders from some nineteen year old human.

She sits back down. Because the nineteen year old human in question is _Laura_ , and Carmilla can, apparently, deny her nothing, no matter how trivial. And, maybe, this isn’t quite as trivial as it had first seemed.

“Okay. Danny.”

“Yes?”

“Are you one hundred percent sure that this relationship is something you’re okay with? Because…”

“I didn’t mean this.” Danny makes a triangular gesture between the three of them. “I meant  you. Being marked up. It’s not. Well, it’s not _just_ a possessive thing. Like, I’d be thrilled if you decided that Elvira Mistress of the Snark wasn’t what you wanted—”

“ _Rude_.” Also, Carmilla is sure, not entirely true. Without Laura as a buffer between them, providing the excuse, Danny would have a damned hard time trying to justify all the thoughts Carmilla just _knows_ are fluttering around in that head of hers.

“But it doesn’t bother me that she’s a part of this. I just. It looked like it _hurt_. And I’m not sure how to stop caring about that as much as I do.”

“I’m not a child, Danny.” Laura frowns, adorable even her muted anger. “We’ve talked about this. I can make my own decisions, including whether or not my vampire girlfriend is allowed to bite me.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

The hangdog expression on her face is almost enough to have Carmilla cracking another dog joke on reflex, but she does have some self-control, and she’d like to make it out of this little meeting unscathed. Or, well, as unscathed as possible when embroiled in one of Laura’s harebrained ideas.

“You’re not allowed to take my decisions out on Carmilla. That’s something that I’m not okay with.”

“Okay.”

“Carmilla, what about you? What can’t we do?”

Carmilla freezes, unused to having her wants and needs taken into consideration. Then she recovers, “Not much, cutie.”

This is not, strictly speaking, true. Carmilla cannot stand to have her hands bound, or a blindfold placed over her eyes. These things remind her—instantly and so, so pointlessly—of the coffin. But she’s in no rush to bring any of that up again. _Never_ sounds like a good time to return the topic.

“Carmilla.”

“Fine. I don’t like being restrained.” The effort it takes to maintain her easily nonchalance is ungodly, but she manages.

“Carm…” Or maybe she doesn’t, if the rather piteous look Laura is now directing her way is any indication. Even the fucking wolf looks like she knows exactly why Carmilla had said that, and isn’t that just fucking peachy. Sympathy from a girl who only operates in one of two modes in relation to her: I want to fucking kill you and I want to fucking fuck you. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Next bullet point, Creampuff.” There’s a bit more bite to the words than she’d originally intended, but she can’t help it. Lashing out has always been Carmilla’s default reaction to any kind of vulnerability. Offense is the best defense, after all.

“Um, Danny, your turn.”

“Er…the biting thing twigs me a bit. Like you said.”

“Right. Okay. My turn. Um…” A pause wherein Carmilla can practically see Laura flipping through pages of mental notes. “Watersports.” A shudder. “Not cool with water sports.”

“You mean Danny isn’t allowed to pee on your leg to mark her territory? Shame.”

“Keep it up, Dead Girl. I’ll pee on _you_.”

“Why, Ms. Lawrence, I hadn’t realized you felt quite so strongly. Do you want me to be yours?” An evil smirk. “Or, far more accurately, do you want to be _mine_?”

Danny squirms in her seat, a flush painting her face to match her hair.

“We are _not_ fighting right now!” Laura huffs out, clearly frustrated. “This is serious.”

Carmilla wants to mention that this isn’t fighting. Not even close. This is Carmilla trying to pull the wool out of the stupid wolf’s eyes and the dumbass clutching to it like a child, refusing to open her eyes because if she can’t see it then it isn’t happening.

“Sorry, Laura.”

Carmilla doesn’t apologize, because she still has her pride godsdammit, but she does snap her mouth shut and refocuses on her tiny girlfriend. She can poke and prod at the ginger idiot until the moron realizes all the things her body has figured out but her brain hasn’t another time; Carmilla has all the time in the world to beat sense into the beast with her words. Or to fuck it into her. She can wait until Laura has finished her spiel about proper communication.

“Carmilla, it’s your turn.” Laura’s face is finishing that sentence with and _no sarcasm please_ , even if her words aren’t. And, fuck it, this is clearly important to her, so Carmilla will treat it like it matters. Like a conversation they need to be having now, rather than something that could have been put off. Once again, until around never or so.

“I don’t like.” A hesitance here. Carmilla hasn’t been shy about her sexual appetites in centuries. Something about being a ruthless murderer, the literal monster beneath the bed, had long since abolished any kind of shame when it came to her wants and needs between the sheets.

But this is not something she’s ever _had_ to speak of, not since Ell. Her past lovers had been targets or toys, her seduction of them dominant and controlling. None had ever even thought of questioning her when she stopped them from doing that which she did not like. It had never even occurred to them. Carmilla had not _let_ it occur to them. But this is Laura, and Laura has always been too damn curious for her own good, and this relationship is not a game. Laura would find out, and then she would ask, and Carmilla would have to tell her then anyways. Might as well get it out of the way now.

“I don’t enjoy penetration.” That’s all she’s willing to give for now. The hows and whys, the fact that she had very much enjoyed it when she had been alive, the confused distaste that had followed the only time she’d allowed a living person to do so since her death and subsequent revival…Laura doesn’t need to know that. No one needs to know that. It isn’t relevant.

After all, Wünder-pup over there hadn’t had to explain why she practically squirmed out of her chair every time Carmilla flashed some fang at her, and fair is fair.

“Okay.” Laura seems to read Carmilla’s abject refusal to take the subject further, summoning up twice the energy and enthusiasm from before as she speaks. “Danny?”

“Uh. I’m not really sure? Most of my exes were pretty vanilla, so.”

“Yes, okay. And I don’t have any exes to speak of, so I guess, we just need to, uh, experiment a little and have a safe word. You know, just in case.”

“Uh…” Danny trails off uncertainly, like there’s some sort of complicity in the decision. It’s just a _word_.

“Mercy.” Carmilla isn’t entirely sure why she says it. She doesn’t really want to be having this conversation at all, let alone contributing to it more than strictly necessary to avoid Laura’s pouting wrath. But there it is, her word floating in the air, decorating the space, as Laura and Danny consider it.

“Easy enough to remember,” Danny concedes, and then as if to distance herself from her agreement, “so long as you don’t secretly get off on us crying for mercy.”

“I can make you beg in a hundred different ways that won’t have that specific word falling from your lips, pup. Wanna see?”

Laura coughs a pointed, fake cough that pretty clearly manages to tell both of them to shut the fuck up with all that right this moment, thank you very much. “Mercy it is then.”

“Great. Are we done now?” Carmilla doesn’t mean to whine, not really, but she’d much rather be _having_ all kinds of sex with them than talking about all kinds of sex with them.

“After the power-point.” Laura smiles brightly, like she thinks this is good news.

She made a power-point. Of course, she did.

How the unholy fuck had Carmilla fallen such a _dork_?


End file.
